Brett Parbery was born to ride, growing up in a family of devoted horse people in Dorrigo, NSW. His father professionally broke in and trained horses, with a focus on the cattle horse sports of campdrafting and cutting. From a young age Brett was involved in stable life helping his father ride and train the horses before and after school.

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Weekends were spent competing at everything from campdrafting, polocrosse, pony club and showing, including at various local agricultural shows and the major royal shows. Brett’s love of Rodeo was sparked at those agricultural shows, where, in NSW, Rodeos were often run as the night-time entertainment of the show program.  “I would find myself glued to the arena fence watching the action of the bucking horses,” he says. “I had my eye on wanting to be a saddle bronc rider. All I wanted to do was be a cowboy and to ride bucking horses, so as soon as I had the chance that's what I did!”

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Brett rode saddle broncs nationally and internationally from 1989 to 2000, becoming one of the Australia’s regular top 20 bronc riders. However, the love of training horses was still deep inside and two years before finishing his Rodeo career, he decided the world of Dressage would be his next challenge.

 

Brett then decided if he wanted to be one of the best, he had to learn from the best so at the end of 2000, he moved to Europe. “I spent three years in Europe working for a number of the top trainers, then at the end of 2003 I decided to come home and start my own stable”.

 

Since returning home Brett has made regular trips back to Europe to continue training and building relationships with the worlds best. Regular 3 and 6 month stints through until 2016, have been part of annual planning for the Parbery stable as each Grand Prix horse is bought to the world stage.

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Brett has now been professionally riding, training and coaching dressage since 2000, with the pinnacle of his achievements being at the World Equestrian Games in 2010. Brett topped off an outstanding European competition season where he finished 10th in the World Cup Final, 6th at Aachen CHIO, 3rd at Rotterdam CHIO and winning the Grand Prix Special at Hickstead. Brett with his top horse Victory Salute, a home bred Australian horse bred and owned by Carolyn Lieutenant completed the 2010 season with an 8th place finish at the best World Games of all time at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky. Some of Brett’s other achievements include winning over 30 individual Australian Championships across all levels including 4 x Australian Grand Prix Champion. Brett has represented Australia on 2 occasions at the World Games in Kentucky and Tryon 2018. In 2008 and 2016 Brett earned a spot in the final 5 for selection to those respective Olympics, with misfortune on each occasion denying the opportunity. At the  London Olympics, Brett was on staff as the Dressage Coach to the Australian Eventing Team and after dressage had the team well positioned in 1st place over all 5 team scores.

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Having trained extensively with the world's best riders and trainers including Edward Gal, Ulla Salzgeber and Hubertus Schmidt, Brett has curated his own rider and horse-friendly system that he teaches under the Performance Riders umbrella.

 

 

Brett is now devoting his efforts towards the production of young horses through to Grand Prix and to education for all ages with co-founder Natalie Foxon with the mentoring and training initiative “Performance Riders”. Performance Riders is an online education program taking people of all ages and stages through Brett’s training system via an initial 6 module – 6 week program, and then following through with a monthly subscription based support network for those wanting high performance and more mentorship in their riding.